Pill comb



M. S. KANBAR May 3, 1960 PILL COMB Filed July 50, 1957 lNVE/VTOR By MAURICE KANBAR ATTORNEY United tates Patent PILL COMB Maurice S. Kanbar, Brooklyn, NY.

Application July 30, 1957, Serial No. 675,153

I 8 Claims. (Cl. 26-28) This invention relates todevices for use in removing small balls of fibers, referred to as pills, from the surface of fabrics made of soft-spun yarn.

When a soft-spun yarn, which is a yarn having a relatively small amount of twist, is woven or knitted, the resulting fabric has a soft feel caused by the protrusion of many of the fibers from the surface of the fabric. With wear,'-the protruding fibers tend to interlock, knot and form unsightly pills or balls. The removal of these fiber pills has heretofore been a difiicult process as the small pills are picked off manually one at a time from the fabric.

It-is an object of this invention to provide a device for readily removing fiber pills from the surface of a fabric.

Another object of this invention is to provide a device from which the fiber pills, taken from the surface of a fabric, can be readily removed.

These objects are accomplished in an illustrative embodiment of the invention wherein a piece of woven gauze is supported by a holdler to form an arcuate comb edge utilized for removing pills. The gauze or cotton mesh fabric is impregnated with abrasive particles of a predetermined size and the impregnated mesh is coated with a thin coating of shellac to round off the jagged particle edges. 7

A feature of this invention relates to the use of the abrasive impregnated mesh for the removal of fiber pills. The mesh provides for spaced ridges of coated abrasive material less than A; of an inch wide. If ordinary sandpaper is utilized, or if the ridges of abrasive material are more than A; of an inch wide, the pills are not readily dislodged from the fabric. The spaced ridges of abrasive material effectively grip or hook the pills at their sides.

Another feature of this invention pertains to coating the abrasive mesh to reduce the particle edges. With the particle edges rounded off by the coating, the pill comb removes the fiber pills but does not remove or catch any of the other fabric fibers.

Still another feature of the invention relates to the provision of a pill comb which has an arcuate edge for removing pills. After the comb is utilized, the pills which are lined up on the comb edge are readily removed therefrom.

Further objects and features will become apparent upon consideration of the following description taken in conjunction with the drawing wherein:

Fig. 1 is a front view of the pill comb of this invention;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged exploded sectional view taken along line 22 in Fig. 1 of the pill comb of this invention;

Fig. 3 is a top view of a greatly enlarged fragment of the abrasive mesh utilized in the pill comb of this invention;

Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken along line 4-4 in Fig. 3; and

Fig. 5 is a pictorial view of the pill comb of this invention illustrating its operation.

2,934,810 Patented May 3, 1960 2 Referring to Figs. 1-5, the pill comb 10 includes an abrasive mesh 12 and a supporting holder 11. The holder 11, which may be plastic, wood or metal, has two slots 22 and 23 into which the longitudinal edges 14 and 15 of the mesh 12 are inserted. The slots 22 and 23are on opposite transverse sides of a protrusion 16 which serves as a solid backing support for the flexible -mesh 12. When the comb 10 is assembled, the mesh 12 is inserted in the slots 22 and 23 and then a sealing wax or glue is placed on the holder 11 at the corners 19 to retain the mesh 12 in position. If the holder 11 is plastic, the plastic at corners 19 can be heated and squeezed over the mesh 12.

The comb 10 is a flat, semicircularly-shaped device having a tapered arcuate portion 21 which, in use, is pressed against the palm of the user. The flat sides of the holder 11 of the comb 10 provide sufficient area to permit a comfortable finger grip. The protrusion 16 of the holder 11 supports the abrasive mesh 12 in a manner to provide an arcuate or rounded working face having a radius of approximately /2 inch.

The two-piece comb 10 is utilized as illustrated in Fig. 5 to remove fiber pills 17 from a fabric 18. The fabric 18 may be a soft-spun wool, cotton, silk or any of the synthetic fibers such as nylon, Orlon, etc. Softspun yarns have protruding fibers which provide for the velvety or soft fabric feel. With wear and rubbing, the protruding fibers form small substantially spherical bodies on the fabric surface which as indicated above are referred to as pills. The comb 10 may be utilized on any pill f0rrning fabric or cloth to effectively remove the pills.

The pills adhere to the fabric 18 because of fiber intertwining, etc. and must be positively gripped for removal. For. example, an air current would not displace or remove the pills and ordinary sandpaper does not re move the pills. Ordinary sandpaper, which is sometimes used to raise the nap of shiny hard-weave fabrics,

is ineffective to remove pills because it catches a very small surface of the pill. In other words, ordinary sandpaper does not sufficiently grip the fiber pills to overcome the adhesion of the pills to the fabric.

As shown in Figs. 3 and 4, the abrasive mesh 12 provides spaced ridges of abrasive material which grip the pill between them. Each cotton thread 20 of the mesh supports a ridge of abrasive material and the mesh is'coated or sprayed by a wax, shellac, paint or lacquer to round ofi the abrasive particle edges. The abrasive particles may be silicon carbide particles or aluminum oxide particles or the like having a grit size approximately 120. The ridges of abrasive material on the pill 17 which is pressed into the pocket as the comb 19 is moved against the fabric 18. A substantial surface of the pill 17 is therefore gripped by the ridge edges. The width of each ridge is less than A; of an inch and the spacing between the'threads of the mesh 12 is approximately Vs inch. The width of the ridge should be less than Vs inch because a wider ridge surface reduces the gripping area of the mesh. In other words, the pill-gripping or hooking action of the mesh is proportional to the distance between abrasive ridges and inversely proportional to the width of the abrasive ridges. This relationship is of course only approximate and applies only within small variations from the dimensions described above. The spacing between the threads 20 of the mesh 12 should not be larger than the minimum pill diameter of approximately W 69i an inch since the opposite sides of the pill would not be gripped by the mesh. Moreover, a coarser mesh is structurally weaker. The 4; inch spacing between threads of the mesh 12 is a compromise between these factors.

If the abrasive mesh 12 is not coated with a shellac, lacquer or the like, the silicon carbide particles present sharp edges to the fabric 18. The sharp particle edges hook lint and fibers as Well as the fiber pills 17. The lacquer rounds oif the sharp particle edges so that the individual fibers are not caught. The pills are, however, hooked in the abrasive pockets formed by the mesh 12 and efficiently removed by the comb from the fabric 18. Because the particle edges are dulled, they grip or hook only the pills to provide for their easy removal.

As described above the working face of the mesh 12 is arcuate having a radius of approximately /2 inch. By having a small radius working surface, the removed pills are lined up on the working face of the mesh 12 and can readily be removed therefrom. If a larger working face radius is utilized, the pills, which adhere tenaciously to the mesh 12, do not line up and must be individually removed. Moreover, the small radius reduces any tendency of the abrasive to pull the fibers of the fabric 18. On the other hand a radius much smaller than /2 inch reduces the abrasive pocket formation. The abrasive particles moreover are also more easily dislodged from a sharp working face. Q By slightly rounding the working face, these difficulties are avoided, with the facility for removing the pills from the comb being retained. It is to 'be understood that the above-described embodiment is merely illustrative of the principles of this invention. Numerous other arrangements may be devised by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention. For example, the abrasive particles may have a larger or smaller grit size and the threads of mesh 12 may be nylon or silk or metallic, etc. instead of cotton. In fact, any hooked or jagged material providing a surface similar to the surface described in the illustrative embodiment comes within the principles of this invention. It is evident therefore that the described embodiment is only illustrative.

What is claimed is:

1. A device for removing fiber pills having a minimum diameter of three-sixteenths of an inch from a fabric, comprising an abrasive mesh and a comb shaped holder to support said mesh, said mesh having an arcuate working face of less than 0.5 inch radius and including a plurality of threads spaced less than A of an inch apart, each of said threads having an abrasive coating providing for an over-all coated thread diameter of less than /s inch and more than A of an inch.

2. A device for removing fiber pills from a fabric comprising an abrasive mesh and a comb-shaped holder to support said mesh, said mesh having an arcuate working face and including a plurality of threads spaced less than A of an inch apart, each of said threads having an abrasive coating providing for an over-all coated thread diameter of less than inch, said abrasive coating on 1 said threads being coated with a particle edge smooth- I 4 ing substance to avoid hooking individual fibers of the fabric when said device is moved against it.

3. A pill comb for removing fiber pills from a softspun fiber fabric comprising a fiat holder forming two slots and having a protrusion; and an abrasive mesh supported on said protrusion and partially in said slots, said mesh having a rectangular array of threads coated with abrasive material and supported on said protrusion to provide an arcuate working face having a constant cross section from one end of the face to the other, said abrasive material coated on said threads being coated with a particle edge smoothing substance to avoid hooking individual fibers of the fabric when said comb is moved against it.

4. A pill comb in. accordance with claim 3 wherein said constant cross section of said working face is semicircular having aradius less than 0.5 of an inch.

5. A pill comb for removing pills having a particular minimum diameter from a fabric made of soft spun fibers comprising a holder and an abrasive mesh supported by said holder, said abrasive mesh having a rectangular arrangement of spaced threads and ridges of abrasive material supported on said threads for catching the pills on the fabric, rectangular array of spaced threads forming an abrasive pocket for hooking pills at each intersection of pairs of ridges, said pockets being smaller in both width and length than the particular minimum diameter of the pills to be removed from the fabric.

6. A pill comb for removing pills from a fabric made of soft spun fibers comprising a holder and an abrasive V mesh supported by said holder, said abrasive mesh having spaced threads, and ridges of abrasive material supported on said threads for catching the pills on the fabric, said ridges of abrasive material being coated with a particle edge smoothing substance to avoid hooking individual fibers of the fabric when said comb is moved against it.

7. A pill comb in accordance with claim 6 wherein said smoothing substance is a lacquer.

8.. A pill comb for removing pills which have a minimum diameter from a fabric made of soft-spun fibers comprising a holder; and an abrasive mesh supported by said holder; said abrasive mesh having a rectangular array of spaced threads-with each adjacent pair of said threads being spaced at a distance less than said minimum diameter of said pills, and ridges of abrasive material supported on said threads having a ridge widthsmaller than the spacing of said threads to provide for abrasive pockets for positively hooking pills :at each intersection of pairs of threads of said rectangular arrangement.

ReferencesCited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,401,719 Myers Dec. 27, 1921 2,010,330 Stanley Aug. 6, 1935 2,029,426 Kingdon Feb. 4, 1936 2,123,581 Anderson July 12, 1938 

